


Glitter and Gold

by Tabithian



Series: Glitter and Gold [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 16:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5056348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabithian/pseuds/Tabithian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to remember what things were like before everything went to hell, but every so often Jason will stumble over some little token, a reminder of the way the world used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Glitter and Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Um, so [this picture](http://tabithian.tumblr.com/post/131713587664/writeworld-writers-block-artists-tumblr-a) combined with [this song](http://tabithian.tumblr.com/post/131722833729/via) made me think post-apocalyptic world? 
> 
> Because reasons.
> 
> The Clench is like zombie virus-thing in this AU because reasons, and other things I have "borrowed" and twisted for use in this AU. Gotham's not the only city where people are holed up - Metropolis because Luthor and all, and other things that I hopefully will be able to explain in other fics in this AU? 
> 
> IDK anymore.../o\

It's hard to remember what things were like before everything went to hell, but every so often Jason will stumble over some little token, a reminder of the way the world used to be.

The way Gotham used to be, before the fucking Clench happened, infected everywhere and nowhere to run with the rest of the world in chaos. The quakes that followed after to finish the job, break Gotham down. (The storms that came after, like the world was trying to wash itself clean.)

Thing is, though. It's going to take more than a goddamned bug and tremors to take her down, break her spirit. 

Still, when he comes across things like this, old poster put up by the tourism board with Gotham standing tall and proud, Jason can almost remember what she was like.

********

“Time to wake up, sleeping beauty,” Jason says, smirks a little as he kicks at the kid's feet. “Come on, we need to get a move on if we want to reach Gotham by nightfall.”

There's a tired grumble, kid rolling over and trying to bury his face in the tangle of sleeping bag and jacket he's using for a pillow. “It's too early.”

Jason rubs a hand over his face to wipe away his smile, stupidly fond because _this kid_. They're living in a world that's doing its best to kill every living thing on it with a vengeance, and he still bitches about getting up before the sun even rises. (When they can see it.)

“Tim, buddy,” Jason says, crouching next to the lump of groggy moron. “There's at least one nest of infected between us and Gotham, and I don't know about you? But I'd really like to have some light to see what I'm killing.” 

And you know, what's trying to kill him.

Tim sighs, like Jason's the unreasonable one here and flops over to face him, one eye peeking out from his little cocoon.

“There you are,” Jason says, can't hide the smile this time because Tim's grumpy little face. “Come on, Tim. Up and at 'em.”

“I should never have let you into the radio tower,” Tim mutters, slowly working his way to full consciousness. “Let the infected deal with you.”

Jason puts a hand to his heart, affects a wounded look. “Right in the heart, Tim, right in the heart.”

Tim _glares_ , and for someone as stupidly tiny as he is, he's almost as good at it as Bruce is.

********

They're maybe ten, fifteen miles down the road when Jason hears Tim whistle, three-note bar and there's a whir of wings and a flash of red dropping down on them.

Jason swears, dodging aside and Tim, the little shit, just laughs as he holds his hand out and his drone alights on his palm, nice as you please.

“Hey, girl,” he says, like the damn thing can understand him. “Find anything good out there?”

The drone cocks its head, eyes focusing on Tim as it trills out a reply that Jason only catches part of.

“Well?”

Tim looks at Jason, drone flittering up to his shoulder where it perches, looking less like the songbird it's modeled after and more like some kind of hawk or eagle.

“Nothing dangerous,” he says, slowly. “Or at least nothing she recognizes as dangerous.”

Which could mean anything, really, since alliances and truces and borders shift and change by the hour in their world now. What might have been safe territory one week is a no-man's-land the next. Trust some shifty-eyed bastard one day, get stabbed in the dark that night. (Jason knows all about that.)

Tim keeps the drone updated as best he can, but they don't exactly have the luxury to sit around for things like that out here.

“You need a spot to link her up to the network?”

There are a few satellites that are still operational, most privately owned. Limited access to things like the old internet, communications lines, shit like that. (Luthor's fucking death satellite drifting dead and broken (for now) and goddamn, does it make Jason nervous knowing it's still up there.)

Better in the standing cities like Gotham, fucking terrible in the outlying areas like this patch of misery.

“It can wait until we get back,” Tim says, runs a finger down the drone's chest, and it lets out another warbling trill, metallic echo.

********

They stop for a twenty minute break a few hours later, Tim limping along gamely enough, drone flitting on ahead to scout.

Jason's on watch checking the area when he comes across some wreckage in the brush, old, rusting away to nothing now. Old SUV and some kind of truck, bodies tangled together, nature slowly taking over, grasses and weeds peeking out of broken windows and twisted metal.

There's a faint scuff behind him, rocks skittering as someone kicks them free and a soft click, sound of a shutter.

“Tim - “

“For the feeds,” Tim says, scrambling down to where Jason is. “You know they need to see this.”

Jason glances at Tim as he moves to stand next to him. Small figure with a straight back and clear eyes.

Still standing tall even with all the shit life's thrown his way.

“Yeah, sure,” Jason says. “Probably taking bets on how long it's going to take for one of us to turn.”

Tim scowls, digs an elbow into Jason's side. “That's not how the Clench works, Jason, and you know it.”

Jason snorts. “Yeah? I mean, Luthor's people say it does, so what do you know about it, shrimp?”

It's easy to forget sometimes, but Tim's got training.

Dick and Jason take turns to work with him, and Bruce was there all the damn time in the beginning, but. Tim had training before he joined their little fold.

He has training, but he still falls back on the classics, little jab of his elbow here, and Jason's wheezing because the little shit plays dirty.

Tim grabs the front of Jason's shirt and _pulls_ , and suddenly they're eye-to-eye. “Luthor's people also wiped millions of people off the face of the planet with that satellite of his.”

 _Infected_ , Jason thinks, but doesn't say.

Because Tim is one of the infected, and so is Jason, and that's the whole fucking reason they're out here scouting the territories instead of someone like Dick, or Bruce.

They're expendable to the people who don't know, who buy into the lies Luthor's sold them

There's no vaccine, no cure for the Clench, but there are people who survive it. Don't turn into some mindless, slavering _thing_.

No one believes it, though. Thinks it's impossible, just that incubation rates vary, and once you're infected that's it, you're done. Put a goddamned bullet in your brain to spare anyone else the pain.

Jason reaches out slowly, carefully, and wraps his fingers around Tim's wrist, squeezes gently. 

“Yeah, and we're going to make that bastard pay for it, right?”

Tim snorts, turns his wrist in Jason's hold and Jason lets go immediately.

“You're such an asshole, Jason.”

Jason smirks and ruffles Tim's hair like he's really that much younger than Jason. “And you're a little shit, so I think that makes us even.”

Bruce has a plan – fucker always does. And if it means that Jason and Tim have to play the part of doomed infected? Sending back Tim's picture and video from his drone, Jason and Tim offering up succinct reports on what life is like outside Gotham for the public to see while they watch and wait for one of them to turn like some sick drama?

Fucking fine, they can do this. 

Because every minute that passes, Bruce and the others are getting closer to shutting Luthor and his people down, and when that day comes Jason and Tim and going to be there to see it happen.

**Author's Note:**

> *hands*


End file.
